5 questions with SJU WR Matt Miller

Members of the St. John's football team most likely want to put last Saturday's 33-21 loss to St. Thomas in the rear-view mirror as quickly as possible.

But there was a pretty memorable offensive moment in the first quarter.

It came when a pass from quarterback Jackson Erdmann bounced off the hands of intended receiver Matt Miller and into the hands of senior Evan Clark, who took it 68 yards for a touchdown that tied the score 7-7.

You can credit Miller, a junior out of Annandale High School, with an assist on that play.

But the 6-foot-3, 210-pounder is making plenty of his own this season as well. Through the first four games, he has already caught a pair of touchdown passes.

And the Johnnies will likely be counting on him even more after senior starter Dan Harrington suffered a fractured fibula last Saturday that will keep him out the rest of the way.

Miller, who played in the 2014 state all-star football game after his senior season at Annandale, talked about all that and more in this week's 5 Questions feature:

Q: The big touchdown catch (by Clark) on Saturday, that's obviously not a play you have designed in the playbook. What exactly happened on that one?

A: Evan and I were both running in routes. Jackson threw the ball just like he should. I just didn't get my head around quick enough and the ball was above me. I tried to reach out and grab it and it banked off my hand. Evan was in the perfect spot at the perfect time. And he had a great run after the catch too. He really converted and made the kind of play we needed to get going as an offense.

That was one of the most incredible plays I've ever been a part of. It was weird timing. Everything about it was different. But it worked out OK.

Q: Dan went down with a season-ending injury last week. How tough is that to see happen to a teammate? And what does it mean to the rest of the wide receivers on this team going forward?

A: Dan meant the world to our offense. He's a leader and he has been since the day I first got here. I can speak on behalf of the younger guys and say that everyone looked up to him. You could tell (Tuesday) at practice that there was something missing without him here. But now we have to play on behalf of him.

It's terrible to lose a leader like that. But we have to fight through the adversity and make the best of a bad situation.

Q: Your uncle John was a college roommate of (Johnnies head coach) Gary Fasching here at St. John's. Has he shared any good college stories with you?

A: Not really. I actually talked with him this past weekend about Gary for a little bit. And he has nothing but great things to say. He said he was always the hardest working guy in the world, had a lot of class and was a real leader. He was really a role model and everyone loved him.

I haven't asked him for any 'great' stories. I don't need to know that. And John wouldn't say anything like that anyway.

Q: You're a global business leadership major. It seems to be a common major among players on the football team here. Why is that?

A: It's just a popular major on campus overall. The school itself doesn't have a specific business major. There are other business-based majors like accounting and economics. But global business leadership gives you such a broad base to work from.

I just like everything about it. I like the background you get, I like the profs in the program. They all have experience and they're all willing to share their real-life stories with us. They really do give us a sense of what the real world is all about.

Q: Last week was a tough loss emotionally. How do you regroup from that, especially knowing that you may well have to win out the rest of the way if you want to get back to the postseason?

A: Every game is a playoff game now and we need to practice like it. We need to come prepared every day we step on the field. Every game has huge stakes from here on out. Losing to St. Thomas was tough. No one wants to lose to the Tommies, or lose any game ever. It puts a lot of weight on our shoulders. But we're ready for the challenge. We've been here before. My freshman year, we lost to Concordia and had to win out. Last year, we lost to St. Thomas and had to win out. And we made it to the second round of the playoffs both of those years.

So we know what we have to do now.

And for a bonus question for Matt Miller, check the video:

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Junior talks about dealing with season-ending injury suffered by teammate